Most people seem to agree that Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet has done
reasonably well since launching in the US in the autumn, but so far we
haven't seen anyone put an actual figure on it.

Well, one analyst willing to put his head on the block is Stifel
Nicolas' Jordan Rohan, who reckons Amazon shifted six million of its
cut-price slates in Q4 of last year.

That's not bad considering this time last year there was no Kindle
Fire, no Amazon App store and pretty much no hint at all that Amazon
was even interested in the mobile market – though considering the form
factor similarities between e-readers and tablets, it seems fairly
logical in hindsight.

Anyway, 12 months down the line and the Kindle Fire has shot from
nowhere to become the best-selling Android tablet around, mainly
thanks to its loss-making $199 price-tag. Like the Kindle e-reader,
Amazon is subsidising the hardware side of things to sell more units
and make increased profits on the software side - Rohan's estimate is
that app sales turn a $10 loss per unit into a $10 profit.

Annoyingly, however, Amazon is following the strongly US-led roll out
pattern that has frustrated us international types with the Kindle
over the years.

There's still no hint of an international roll out for the Kindle
Fire, and while the good and the great of the mobile world are gearing
up for Mobile World Congress in Barcelona at the end of Feb, if
Amazon's planning on being there it's doing a good job of keeping it
quiet.

Why the delay? It's a complication of that same basic business model
that sets the Kindle Fire price tag so low, as Amazon needs guaranteed
sales through its App store to offset the loss it's making on the
tablet itself, and with each market presenting a different proposition
on that front, getting the sums right is a complex process.

We’re still getting used to the idea that Samsung might not launch the
Galaxy S III at Mobile World Congress after all, but it might have
another high-specced beast up its sleeve.

German site Tabtech reckons Samsung is planning to reveal a spanking
new Galaxy Tab, with a mammoth 11.6in display. That’d make it the
world’s biggest Android tablet, right?

Other rumoured specs for the Samsung Galaxy Tab 11.6 include a 2GHz
dual-core Exynos 5250 processor, and an eye-melting resolution of
2560x1600. The screen will also welcome stylus input.

The rumour is corroborated by Android and Me’s Taylor Wembley, who was
asked to delete pictures he took of a prototype Exynos 5250-powered
tablet at CES in Vegas. Said prototype had Ice Cream Sandwich (Android
4.0) on board.

To be honest, we’d rather see the Samsung Galaxy S III. Also, this
will be the fifth Galaxy Tab (7, 7.7, 8.9, 10.1 and now 11.6) from
Samsung, adding to our concerns that Sammo might “do an HTC” in 2012.

White smartphones are all the rage these days. We’ve got the iPhone
4S, Samsung Galaxy S II, Samsung Galaxy Note, BlackBerry Bold Touch
and loads more that I can’t recall at the moment.

Anyway, HTC is about to jump on board the white train with an Ice White HTC Sensation.

Oddly enough, after cheering us up with the realisation that less is
more, this’ll be a white HTC Sensation – that’s the original guy as opposed to the higher-specced HTC Sensation XE.

Unsurprisingly, the specs on the Ice White HTC Sensation will remain
the same, so you’re looking at a 4.3in 540x960 display, 1.2GHz
dual-core Qualcomm processor and an 8MP camera with 1080p video
recording.

By the time it lands on March 1, the HTC Sensation in Ice White will be packed full of Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) goodness.

In the fast-paced modern world, there just aren’t enough minutes in the
day. As such, it’s often necessary to multitask, and a great way to make
up some time is to text while you pee.

Of course, there’s always the fear that you’ll drop your phone in
the toilet, but if this latest rumour is to be believed, you’ll be able
to fish your iPhone 5 or Samsung Galaxy S III out of the bend and keep
on texting - Amazing - hm?

According to a “previously reliable source” of Cult of Android, both
the Samsung Galaxy S III and iPhone 5 will be waterproof. However, the
source serves the rumour juice “with a side of caution”, and presumably
some fries.

Supposedly it’ll be CES attendees Liquipel getting the big money
contracts for waterproof goodness. That’ll no doubt come as a shock to
rivals HZO, who seemed to think that both Apple and Samsung were
interested in their waterproof tech.

In any case, it looks like waterproof action will be the norm for high-end smartphones in future.

If there’s one thing we’re really looking forward to at Mobile World
Congress, it’s a host of spanking new much-the-same Android tablets. You
really never can have enough of those bad boys.

Well, good news if you can’t wait another three weeks, as Fujitsu
has fired out a press release detailing the Stylistic M350/CA2.

The
press release is fairly light on the spec front, but tells us the
Fujitsu Stylistic M350/CA2 will weigh in at 420g with a 7in 1024x600
display, “Android OS” (thought to be Gingerbread) and 6.1 hours of
battery life.

Fujitsu is keen to emphasise its "NX! Input powered by ATOK"
character input technology, allowing users to switch between numeric,
QWERTY and hand-written input.

The Japanese manufacturer suggests
that the Stylistic M350/CA2 would be ideal “as a mobile sales terminal,
as a handset for displaying digital catalogs at a retail store, and as
an e-book reader in a classroom setting.” Exciting.

Will the Fujitsu Stylistic M350/CA2 be in attendance at Mobile World Congress? Does anyone care?

All we know about this new chap is that it has the model number TF300T.
Cripes knows what I’m gonna write next. Come join me. It’ll be fun.

We have absolutely no specs to go on at this stage. Well, looking at the pics, there’s a rear camera of unknown megapixelage, the back is blood reddish, and there’s a headphone jack. And that's all-we-have-in-our-knowledge! :-)

Nothing can be taken from the model number either. The original Asus
Eee Pad Transformer is the TF101 and the cursed Asus Transformer Prime
is the TF201, however a redesigned variant of the latter carries the
model number TF700T. Great stuff.

So what the hell is it? A proper successor to the just-released Asus
Transformer Prime? A little 7 in guy? We're not even sure if it runs Android.

We laugh at all the iPhone, and other instant messaging services, sometime hilarious and most time embarrassing auto-correcting screen caps that show up on the web. For the most part, especially if you use one of the sites out there that can generate fake screens, the results from this silliness are fairly benign. The same can’t be said for a new app that has been released for the iPhone called SpoofTexting. The idea is that this app will let you send a message to someone from your iPhone but make the recipient think that it came from someone else.

When you install the SpoofText “tweak” as it is being called it allows for alterations to be made to the native messaging application on the iPhone with a new option added to the top navigation bar. Then when you write up some smartass, or cruel and nasty, message you will now have the ability to send that message to any number you choose from any number you choose.

As noted in the post at Redmond Pie:

Whilst I do agree that the SpoofTexting plugin could provide some light hearted entertainment when used purely for pranking friends, I somehow get the feeling that a large portion of users would actually use this for something a little more sinister which in all honesty makes me a little uneasy.

SpoofTexting is available to download free of charge via the BigBoss repository for iOS 4 or higher. Now you will need to have a jailbroken iPhone and this will only work within the US.

Google-powered devices closed in on Apple in the tablet market in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to new research. The data from research firm Strategy Analytics showed Android’s market share jumped to 39 per cent from 29 per cent in the same quarter a year earlier.

“Dozens of Android models distributed across multiple countries by numerous brands such as Amazon, Samsung, Asus and others have been driving volumes. Android is so far proving relatively popular with tablet manufacturers despite nagging concerns about fragmentation of Android’s operating system, user-interface and app store ecosystem.”

Apple’s iPad remained the clear leader in the market, at 58 per cent for the three-month period, despite the threat from lower-cost Android devices. However, that was about 10 per cent lower than the 68 per cent recorded in 2010. Microsoft’s share of the market was 1 per cent, but its upcoming operating system, the tablet-friendly Windows 8, may help boost that.

Almost 67 million tablets were shipped last year, compared with 18.6 million in 2010, as consumers turn away from netbooks and entry-level PCs. Almost 27 million were shipped in the final quarter of the year, up 150 per cent compared with a year earlier.